Because I am too lazy to investigate myself for a couple of hours and because you guys are so smart, I thought I would post here about exercising and breathing.
Just in the last week or so, I have had trouble breathing while exercising. I am wondering if I have hit my VOmax for my age.
Background:
I won an charity auction item for a gym membership for a few months, so I started exercising during the winter. It is basically a high intensity routine and I vary it from upper body to lower body. A lot of complex movements/exercise. I have put on about 10 to 15 pounds of muscle in the last 2.5 months. I am pretty much at the top of my normal weight lifting plateau. Much more weight and my joints might not cooperate.
Feel quite well. Don't have any breathing problems outside of the gym, although I did have some minor asthma about 3 to 4 years back for which I got an inhaler, but the real solution was to have cleaner indoor air. Dust and cat hair build-up had caused it for the most part.
Why I think I might be hitting my VOmax is that I start my gym session with 10 minutes on an elliptical machine. Started a couple months ago getting 100 calories in 10 minutes. Today I ran it at max and it calculated 224 calories in 10 minutes, after which I couldn't catch my breath. Just thinking I might have built up too much muscle for the oxygen carrying capacity of my old and decrepit body. It seems the breathing trouble coincided with my burning more than 200 calories on the elliptical in 10 minutes (just in the last 3 or 4 sessions).
If I don't do much cardio, then the breathing is fine, no matter how heavy I lift. Running/jogging does not produce problems. I like the high intensity combination of the short cardio and lifting, but I think I might have to change it. Just can't catch my breath. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything similar.